


After Darkness, Dawn

by HumanError



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drug Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, PTSD John, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Lestrade, Protective Mycroft, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 07:03:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8002855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HumanError/pseuds/HumanError
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s been out there for almost three nights now with a hole ripped through his shoulder and an infection that is dragging him closer and closer to the brink. No one will find me, John thinks as he lays in the dirt.</p><p>Sherlock curls in on himself and presses the needle in to his vein. He can no longer feel the jab when it is pressed into his skin, or the rush in his bloodstream when the drugs are injected. </p><p>Two broken men, two different worlds. Maybe who they need is closer than they think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Darkness, Dawn

The darkening sky watches him die. It watches over him with all of the power and might of the world, and the stars twinkle as they see the life draining from another man. And with all that power and all that might comes the silence, a silence which is so agonising, so pressing that it seems cruel. John wants to scream.

He’s always thought that the Afghanistan night sky was the most beautiful thing in the world. It had been comforting during those nights when he’d lost his friends to the brutality of the war. He wouldn’t ever wander too far but during those nights he’d go outside and lay down, gazing upwards as the constellations ignited the never ending darkness in an array of beautiful designs and patterns that would captivate the imagination of anyone who sought solace. It was welcoming when he had seen sights that would have made the strongest soldier cry himself to sleep. Oh how he had wept underneath that blanket of stars.  Now, all the sky does is torment him. _I will continue to watch over you as you die._

He’s been out there for almost three nights now with a hole ripped through his shoulder and an infection that is dragging him closer and closer to the brink. _No one will find me,_ John thinks as he lays in the dirt covered in his own blood, sweat and excrement. He can’t even find it in himself to be humiliated. _Please God, let me live_ he thinks as the stars begin to lose their shine and the pain somehow begins to cease. _Or just stop this completely._

***

The darkening sky watches him die. Through a cracked window of an abandoned building he can see the pastels of the sunset morphing into a darkness that is encapsulating, overwhelming. A streetlight flickers on and the dingy grey of the room becomes illuminated as the orange makes its way through the glass. And then nothing. The streetlight flickers out. He is in darkness once more.

Sherlock curls in on himself and presses the needle in to his vein. He can no longer feel the jab when it is pressed into his skin, or the rush in his bloodstream when the drugs are injected. He’s shivering and clammy and _trying to think but there are too many distractions. Why are there distractions?_ He presses his eyes closed when he feels the tears stinging them, willing himself not to cry, but he can’t. He feels them unrelenting and suddenly he’s sobbing, trying to figure out what went wrong.

The streetlight flickers back on. Sherlock sits up, avoiding the needles that are littered on the concrete beside him and glances around the room shaking his head. _Where am I?_ He thinks and begins to panic. _What am I-_ and then he realises where he is, recognises the grey walls that have mould growing in every corner, recognises the tattered mattress that he has called his bed for a considerable number of days. There is vomit on his shirt and blood on his arms and he remembers it all.

Sherlock picks up the list- there’s always a list- and drags himself over to the window, paper crumpled in hand, and pulls himself up from the ground to look at the stars. He wants an escape. The paper drops and his knees give way before him and once again he’s on the floor, convulsing. _Please make this stop,_ he thinks. He can no longer see the stars.

***

“Don’t you dare die on me, Watson. Not today.” Major James Sholto sits next to John’s hospital bed and watches as the man fights for his life, hooked up to machines and tubes and drips. Monitors are beeping, the only thing telling Sholto that _he is alive._ He cannot help but notice how tiny his medic looks and it’s unsurprising considering the circumstances. Never in all of his military service has Sholto seen a man so determined to live as John, who, despite seeing the worst of it all and having men die as he held them through their final breaths, continued to smile and remain optimistic. Despite every loss of life and every failed mission John never once lost hope that they could get through this. Now, Sholto cannot help but pity him. His face and hands are burnt from being caught in the Afghan sun for so long without shelter, and bandages cover his chest from where his wound is healing. The infection turned out to be so severe that he was left dealing with gangrene. _The poor sod,_ Sholto thinks, _the poor fucking sod._

***

“Come on, Sherlock. You can pull through this.” Lestrade is standing in the doorway of Sherlock’s side room in the ward, staring as the man on the bed struggles for his life to get through another overdose. “You’re stronger than this.”

Suddenly Mycroft feels a hand on his shoulder and he spins round to see Mycroft standing there, a look of complete and utter resignation and exhaustion plastered on his face. “I should have seen this coming.” Mycroft states, impassive. “I thought he was getting better.”

“We all did.” Lestrade reassures him with what he hopes to be a sympathetic smile but turns in to more of a grimace.

The elder Holmes makes his way over to the chair beside Sherlock’s bed and sits down before taking a proper look at his brother. Needle marks dot their way all up his arm and his skin is sallow and pale, telling them just how sick Sherlock really is. His cheeks are hollow and a sheen of sweat is covering his face, only emphasising how ill he looked.

And just like that everything changed. Suddenly there were machines beeping and Mycroft and Lestrade were being ushered outside of the room. “We need some space,” the nurse said. “This is urgent.”

They both watch as they try to resuscitate him.

 _I should have seen this coming,_ Mycroft thinks again as he watches his brother’s ribs being crushed under hands that are trying to save him. _I should have been there to help you._

***

Dawn breaks through the window of the hospital room as John finally wakes up. It takes a lot of effort to finally open his eyes and when he does he’s met with blurriness. Once his vision returns he is glances around the room, notices the equipment hooked up to him and instantly knows where he is. _Of course._ John sighs as feeling returns to his body, and he is suddenly overcome with an onslaught of agony.

“Shit.” He manages through gritted teeth. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” John doesn’t realise that at this point he is shouting, but soon enough there is a nurse in the room, followed by Sholto. They’re explaining things to him but he doesn’t know what because all he can focus on is the pain and how much it _hurts._

Soon enough the medicine kicks in and it’s just the two of them. Johns asks Sholto to tell him what happened again. _You were MIA. We thought you were dead when we found you. Shot. Dehydrated. We thought there was no coming back from it._

“Really think you’re going to get rid of me that easily, Major?” John chuckles.

“You’ve had us all terrified.” Sholto looks at John, makes eye contact and then puts his hand on John’s, just briefly. “Never do that again.”

He squeezes John’s hand before letting go.

***

They manage to resuscitate him. Early the next morning Sherlock pulls through and wakes to find himself alone, not that he is bothered by it at all. He assesses himself and determines immediately that he is well enough to leave. Swinging his legs round, albeit with much difficulty, Sherlock manages to stand on shaky legs, not quite registering that it probably would have been best to disconnect himself from all of the machines before trying to get away from them.

“What do you think you are doing?” Sherlock turns and his legs give way. Mycroft is by his side in an instant and helping him back on to the bed. “Why did you lie? I thought you were getting better. We all thought you were getting better, brother.”

“It was a slight miscalculation on my part, though I can assure you that I am fine.” Sherlock sunk back into the bed and sighed. He knew what was coming next.

“You’re an idiot. How do you think mother would feel if I had to tell her that you had died? Father? How do you think he would feel?”

“Since when did you ever care about other people’s feelings?” Sherlock rolled his eyes. Despite all of his protests Mycroft could see how terrible Sherlock felt, how drained he was.

“I’m not going to be the one who tells them that you are dead.”

“Lestrade could do it. After all, he works for the police and-“

“Sherlock.” Mycroft interrupts, his voice cutting. The same exhaustion was there as the night before but his voice isn’t emotionless. He’s angry. “I am not seeing my little brother die.”

“I’m not going to die.”

“Are you really so stupid?” Mycroft rolled his eyes, exasperated. Every single time this happened, every single time Sherlock was hospital bound due to some ridiculous overdose, this was his response.

“Don’t you have more important things to be getting on with? Running the government? Telling Lestrade what to do?”

“I’m sending you to rehab.”

“No.”

“You’re going. I’m not bothered by your protests or your claims of not needing it. You’re going to rehab.”

***

_The gun fires. The bullet hits. Blood sprays and bone shatters._

Suddenly John is jolted awake from his sleep, soaked in sweat and screaming, terrified. He’s used to it by now. The dingy little bedsit in London is the last place he wants to be whilst suffering from PTSD. It’s small and cramped and horrendous and John wants out. He doesn’t want to be here, he doesn’t want these _fucking_ _nightmares_ and he doesn’t want to accept the fact that he’ll never be able to return to where he belongs, to the family he’s been with for 18 years. Life is never going to be as he knows it again and he doesn’t know whether he can cope with that.

John drags himself from the bed, limping over to his desk before sitting down and picking his gun up from where it sits in the drawer. He holds it, feeling the heavy weight of it against his hand. _It would be so easy to pull the trigger._

He places it back inside the drawer and shuts it.

______

“Have you been having any nightmares recently? Flashbacks? It’s very common in people suffering from PTSD to experience these sort of things.”

John stares at the carpet mindlessly, not realising that Ella is speaking to him. Therapy was definitely not his idea of a good start to the morning. Then again, it wasn’t as worse as waking up in a pool of your own sweat thinking you were getting shot at again, John thought.

“John?”

“Hm?”

“Nightmares. Flashbacks. Have you experienced any?” She began scribbling notes down as she waited for John to answer.

“Huh? Oh, no. None.” He began fiddling with a thread on his jumper, deliberately avoiding eye contact with his therapist. Of course he knew that Ella was trying to help him but he really, _really_ did not want to be here.

“You need to tell me if you do, John. It’s very important-“

“I haven’t had any nightmares. Or flashbacks.”

Having decided that the session was over, John picked up his cane and limped over to the door. “See you next week.”

***

 

 “You’re going through withdrawal- it’s perfectly normal to be reacting this way.” Lestrade turned the corner into the drive of the inpatient rehab centre and parked promptly.

“You think I don’t know that?” Sherlock snarled. “I thought I was just craving cocaine for absolutely no reason. And shaking because I was cold.”

“You got yourself in to this.”

“And I would have gotten myself out of this. Mycroft had other ideas.”

Sherlock stepped out of the car and slammed the door shut, before retrieving his case from the boot. “See you in a month!” Lestrade called from inside the car. “And stick with it!”

“Fuck off.” And just like that, Sherlock was gone.

____

“So, Sherlock is it? My name is Patricia and I am here to help you and support you whilst you’re going through this very difficult time.”

“I’m fine.”

“We’ll help you recover and-“

Sherlock crossed his legs and listened as Patricia recited what she had probably said a hundred times before. _We’re here for you. Don’t feel like you’re alone._

“It was a heroin overdose.” Sherlock interrupted abruptly, eyes scanning her from head to toe.

“Your overdose wasn’t on cocaine, Sherlock…”

“Oh for god’s sake. Not me. Your husband. You have a chain around your neck- wedding ring is on it. He didn’t die recently, no, you haven’t got a tan line on your finger from when you took it off but you keep it with you at all times. You were angry. Night after night he’d be going to dens, high as a kite. Until one day it was too much and he was found dead… Your marriage was failing anyway. Yet you still have the ring.”

Patricia’s friendly persona faltered and she was left staring at Sherlock, confused, frustrated and just a tad angry. “I’ve no idea where you have got this information from or who gave it to you-“

“No one gave it to me-“

“But I am not willing to talk about my personal life with my patients.”

“Hm, shame.”

Sherlock jumped up from his seat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Excuse me, not excuse you.” With a flick of his coat, Sherlock was out the door.

***

“John, you need to carry on going to therapy!” Harry slurred. She had turned up at his house later that evening drunk. “It will help you!”

John clenched his fist. She was in no way the person to tell him whether he should go to therapy or not when she was the one who couldn’t even bring herself once to go to rehab.

“Are you done yet?”

She flopped on the sofa before bursting in to tears. “I miss Clara.”

***

“You didn’t even last three days!” Lestrade exclaimed as he found Sherlock on his doorstep a few days later asking him for a case.

“They were all morons. Besides, I’m fine now. Since rehab didn’t work Mycroft has upped the surveillance on me. Won’t be getting in to any trouble any time soon.”

***

“You said, ‘still has trust issues.”

“And you read my writing upside down. See what I mean?”

John had to admit that Ella had a valid point.

***

That morning was the same as any other. The limp was there, the nightmares, the screaming. He looked at his gun again, like he did every other day, before putting it back in the drawer. _Tonight._

***

Everything changed that morning. They were both thankful.

***

“We don’t know a thing about each other; I don’t know where we’re meeting; I don’t even know your name.”

 _“_ I know you’re an army doctor and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you’ve got a brother who’s worried about you but you won’t go to him for help because you don’t approve of him – possibly because he’s an alcoholic; more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp’s psychosomatic – quite correctly, I’m afraid. That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think? The name’s Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street. Afternoon.”

And just like that, John was hooked. _He’s like a drug. Addictive and captivating and I want more._

***

“I want you. I _need_ you. Please.” John groaned as Sherlock pressed his body against his on the bed, mouth trailing up John’s neck before finally meeting his lips. “Please.”

They made quick effort of discarding each other’s clothes until it was nothing but them, wrapped up in the sheets in Sherlock’s bedroom. Breathing heavily, panting, moaning.

John’s thumb brushed over Sherlock’s cheekbone before entwining his fingers through Sherlock’s hair and pulling his head down until their lips met. “You’re so beautiful.” Sherlock manages between gasps, revelling in John. Every movement creates a rhythm that flows in perfect harmony and they’re lost entirely, lost in another world created just for the two of them. Sherlock cannot help but smile. This, right now, is everything he could have wanted. Everything he needed.

Sherlock’s hand cups John’s jaw before travelling downwards, gently grazing against the scar on his chest, before reaching his hips. Down further. John inhales and presses his face into Sherlock’s shoulder, before laying back against the bed, mouth open, utterly content.

Outside, a streetlight flickers on. The darkening sky watches as the two men fly together, just them against the rest of the world.


End file.
